Sometimes we set a complex password and forget it. If we have done that on Mint 18 we have a procedure to reset the password. In this article we will have a look at the procedure.
- Power on your machine
- While the system is booting hold the shift key to pause the system at GRUB.
- Choose “Linux Mint 18 xxxxx 64 bit”
- Press “e” to edit the line.
- Press “up” arrow or “Down” arrow to navigate to line that starts with “linux”
- Goto the end of the current line, remove “ro quiet splash $vt handoff” and append “rw init=/bin/bash”
- Press “F10” key or “Crtl – x” to boot
- The system will boot up to a administrative root shell without asking for a password
- Type passwd <username>
- Enter your new password and confirm
- Reboot your machine
- Try logging using your new password
Free and Open Source Software Knowledge Base 
Should this method work for version 19? I don’t get “ro quiet splash $vt handoff”; I get “ro recovery nomodeset”
sorry forgot to say this is using mint 18.2
Holding down, or tapping or any combination of either shift key does not work. Are you sure that it is not shift and something else???
You should hold f12 key
[ Smiles ] Let us hope that the same thing applies to the upcoming Linux Mint 18.2.